Bittersweet Memory
by MoonAndFlowers
Summary: Ever wonder why Gaius is so fixated with sweets? Why he gives everyone nicknames? Just what happened to him in the past?
1. Prolouge

"Gaius?" Robin asked, poking her head into the kitchen.

"Hm? Oh," the thief looked up from his mixing bowl to glance over his shoulder. "Heya, Bubbles. Just in time. Taste this for me?" He held out a wooden mixing spoon to her, filled with some purple, liquidy substance.

"What is it?" Robin eyed the spoon carefully. After Tharja had tried to hex her by spiking her drink with some weird potion, she'd been wary of unidentified, seemingly edible substances.

"Fruit pie filling. It's really important that I get this one right, so let me know how it is?"

Oh. So that was it. Robin took the spoon and brought it to her lips, considering the flavor. "It's fantastic, Gaius. I didn't know you knew how to cook."

He smiled a little, taking the spoon back and returning to his work. "Picked it up along the way."

"Why sweets, though?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you so hooked on sweets?"

"Oh. I just didn't get them much as a kid, I guess. Man, was I missing out. I have to make up for all that lost time, you know?"

Robin couldn't say she did, but she didn't question it. Really, she didn't know much about Gaius, or where he'd come from, what his life had been like. To be fair, she didn't know much about herself in those respects, either, but it seemed weird for her to not know the history of her comrades.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Gaius was absentmindedly stirring his pie filling, his mind somewhere else. Deciding that this probably wasn't the best time to ask him about it, she started setting up to make dinner; it was her night to serve the company, and if she didn't get a move on, Lissa would be in the kitchen at her elbows, asking how long until they could all eat.


	2. The Fire

"Gaius!" a voice shrieked through the house. Gaius rubbed his eyes, waking from what had been an excellent dream. It took him a moment before he realized his room was uncomfortably hot, and that it was hard to breathe. "Gaius!" the voice called again, panicked.

"Mom?" The boy called back. "Mom!"

He leapt out of his bed and into the hallway of their small one-story house, coughing. His mother was in the front room, a handkerchief in front of her mouth. Thick, black smoke rolled through the room, and neither one of them could not stop wheezing.

"Come on!" his mother commanded. "Get outside!"

He nodded, taking her hand and rushing for the door, avoiding the fire that seemed to have a life and mind of its own. There was a deafening crack from above the two of them as they moved, and instinctively, Gaius's mother shoved her son out the door. He stumbled, turning around to see his mother engulfed in a flaming chunk of what used to be a support beam for their roof.

"Mom!" he screamed. _"Mom!"_

She didn't respond. She didn't even look up. Gaius felt tears well in his eyes, continually yelling to his mother from the street. He was young, and scared; too scared to go back into the flaming mass he'd once called home.

"Sounded like a kid over here!" he heard a voice yell gruffly through the streets. Gaius whirled around, eyes scanning the smoke-filled streets. It seemed every other house in town was burning to the ground with his own house. A gruff looking man wielding a large ax came lumbering into view, snarling at the boy. "Here, sheepy sheepy…"

Not knowing what else he could do, Gaius ran the other way, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He wasn't even sure where he was going, he only knew he had to get away. Once far enough away from the village that he couldn't smell the smoke anymore, he scrambled up the nearest tree, looking out into the night at the flames that licked the skyline. He wasn't being chased anymore, leaving him to stare out at the bandits that decimated his home.

He'd heard that the war between Ylisse and Plegia was bad, but he'd never imagined that the Plegian bandits would come out to his village. Then again, that's where his dad had gone off to do; fight off Plegia in their own lands. He'd probably razed his own fair share of innocent villages.

His distress renewed at the thought of his father. They'd received word only days ago that he'd died in combat, and now his mother was gone, too. What was he supposed to do? Where was he supposed to go?

The adrenalin drained from his system, and tiredness began to settle in. Despite how angry, upset, and alone he felt, there was nothing he could do tonight but stay hidden.

Positioning himself among the branches so he wouldn't fall out in the middle of the night, he leaned against the trunk of the tree and nodded off into dreamless sleep.


	3. Elis

"-y. Hey. Hey!"

It was the second time in a row Gaius had woken up to someone yelling at him. The first time had saved his life; now though, it seemed like someone was just trying to get his attention. He opened his eyes and leaned forward, immediately regretting it. He was stiff from sleeping in the tree all night, and no matter how he stretched, he couldn't make the aches in his back, neck, or limbs subside.

"You awake now?"

Right. The voice from below.

He looked down into the face of a boy who was maybe his own age, but probably a few years older. Upon closer inspection, yes, he was certainly at least a few years older. He didn't look anything like the Plegians that had raided his town the night before, and didn't speak with their accent. His hair was a dark blue, and swept over just above his brown eyes. He did look sketchy, though; he dressed in dark clothes with more pockets than Gaius could count, probably filled to the brim with dangerous items, and seemed to have a short sword dangling by his hip.

Then again, the boy looked nimble enough that if he'd wanted to kill Gaius, he would have climbed into the tree and done it while he was asleep, rather than startling him awake by shouting down at the base of it.

Gaius was debating what he should do, ending up not saying or doing anything.

"I'm Elis," the boy offered after Gaius still hadn't offered up anything. "We heard about the village burning too late. Sorry we didn't come in time, or help, or anything."

Gaius wasn't sure what to say, a sudden pang of loneliness and loss hitting him. As though he'd thought that maybe last night had been a dream, and he'd woken up in a tree by accident. He was sure Elis meant well, but it wasn't exactly something he wanted to talk about at this point.

"Can you get down?" Elis asked. There was an interesting thought. Could he?

Gaius looked down at the tree branches below him, each seeming too far for his little legs to reach. He wondered how he'd even gotten up the tree in the first place the night before. He stretched out his left leg toward the nearest tree limb, his toes finding it, but his instincts told him that he'd fall if he tried to put his weight onto that leg. He shifted his weight so he was sitting the way he'd slept the night before.

"No," Gaius said quietly.

"What was that?"

"No," Gaius repeated, louder this time.

Elis broke into a peel of laughter that dissolved into giggles.

"Alright, Whiskers, we'll get you down from there," he said between laughs, hustling out of Gaius's view.

"'Whiskers'?" Gaius asked himself under his breath.

Before long, a burly man that could have been a cousin to the Plegian who'd spotted the boy the night before lumbered up to the tree. Gaius backed himself up against the trunk, trying to make himself as small and unnoticeable as humanly possible. Of course, doing this obscured what view he'd had of the man.

"Whiskers?" Elis's voice called from below. Gaius didn't say anything. He may have been stuck up a tree, but at least he was safe up where no one could reach him. "Well, he is up there, Buddy." Elis commented to his new companion. "And he said he was stuck. He's just…" Elis paused, searching for the right word, "shy."

"You're sure I won't scare him?" the man asked, voice deep and gruff. Elis must have given a visual clue to the man, because suddenly, Gaius could hear the sound of branches groaning under the weight of, undoubtedly, the burly monster that probably spelled out the new orphan's demise. Gaius closed his eyes and waited.

"Ah. Here you are," the deep voice grunted as Gaius felt his tree limb shake. He'd been found. Gaius braced himself. "Well then. Down you go." Just like that, he was lifted up across the man's shoulder. He groaned inwardly, still sore and stiff. "Hold on tight, yeah?" And then they were descending. Involuntarily, Gaius tensed around the man despite his protesting muscles, willing himself to not fall off.

"You're almost to the ground, Whiskers," Elis narrated as they climbed down. "You're good, you're good… one more branch… you're good."

The man carefully untangled Gaius's fingers from his shirt before setting him down on the ground. "You okay?" he asked. Gaius nodded once, still shaken both from the experience of A) not being killed by someone who he felt should have killed him, and B) being tossed over a man's shoulder in order to get down from a tree. He tried stretching again, hoping that being able to stand while stretching would have a better affect than sitting in a tree while stretching would have. "What's your name, kid?" the man asked, crouching down to be eye level with him.

"Gaius," he replied quietly, deciding that he could trust this big man who looked Plegian but didn't boast the accent or typical demeanor.

In that moment, he felt infinitely small. Next to this big man, who had to crouch to talk to him, who looked similar to the men who killed both his mother and possibly his father, who talked in such a soft voice to prevent scaring him further, he felt small, and sad, and pathetic. Not knowing what else to do, the boy latched onto the man's shirt again and began weeping into his broad chest.

The man hesitated, then put an arm around the child. "You've been though a lot, huh?" he asked softly. "And you did your best to stay safe, and strong. And you did it! You did good, kid. You're safe now. Go ahead and cry."

"But boys don't cry," Elis said defiantly, sounding a little annoyed. He was promptly and harshly shushed by the man.

"Everyone cries, Elis. Don't try and pretend you haven't." He turned away from the blue-haired youth. "He's lost a lot within the space of one night. He's allowed to." And then, to himself, the man added, "He's just a kid. He shouldn't be expected to be that strong."

Gaius pressed his face into the man's shirt and cried.


	4. Meet the Gang

Gaius opened his eyes, the world slowly and sleepily coming into view. He stared up at what he expected to be the sky, but instead, he saw a dully colored tent above him. He sat up straight, whipping his head around to figure out where he was.

"Ah," said a familiar voice beside him. "You are awake." Gaius focused on the large man sitting beside the bed in a chair, an open book in one broad hand. Suddenly, the events of the previous day came rushing back to the boy. After being rescued from the tree, Elis and the man he called Buddy lead Gaius back to camp. Buddy, realizing Gaius wasn't ready for any attention from any more new people, gave him his tent and cot, and made sure he didn't have any visitors for the day. Gaius had found some string to play with, and worked on the few knots that he knew, and then on the string games the girl two houses down used to play with him. He didn't remember falling asleep, but he must have.

"How're you feeling?" Buddy asked, closing his book. Gaius shrugged. He felt a little better. He still had the dull ache of loss gnawing at the back of his mind and the edge of his stomach, but it was easier to push it out of the way than it had been before. And a proper night's sleep in a real bed had done wonders for him. "I'm Fenz, by the way," the man offered after a brief moment of silence. "But you can call me Buddy, if you want. Figure Elis called me that enough in front of you for you to get used to that." No response. Fenz smiled a little. "Think you're ready to meet the rest of the company?"

To be honest, Gaius wasn't sure if he was or not. What he really wanted to do was fall back asleep, unmake himself, unmake the world around him, return to a time when there was nothing in the world. But in the back of his head, he could hear his mother sighing, "Oh, Gaius, don't be so _dramatic."_ And eventually, this group of people would pack up and move on. He couldn't just stay here and expect them to leave Fenz's tent and bed for him so he could curl up in a ball forever. What about when he got old? When he was 182, would he still be curled up in this bed?

"I guess so," Gaius said. Fenz gave him a hearty thump on the back, jostling the orange haired boy forward.

"Atta boy!" Fenz said gleefully. In an instant, he was at the tent flap, pulling it open, letting in what was arguably the most blinding light Gaius had ever seen. "Hey, everyone! Come meet the kid!" he yelled into the camp.

Squinting, Gaius slipped out of the bed, over to Fenz, and out into the sunlight. By the time his eyes adjusted, there was a small crowd gathered around him, looking him up and down. He waved once, shyly.

"Alright then, everyone, this is Gaius, the one Elis and I told you about from yesterday."

"But we should call him Whiskers," Elis piped up.

"No, Elis, we're not going to…"

"But he was stuck in a tree! Like a cat!"

"Elis," one woman said commandingly. The boy shut up.

"Alright," Fenz sighed, gathering himself again. He became as jovial as he'd been a moment ago. "From left to right. You know Elis. Next we have Anrew, our best archer." He gestured to a beanpole of a teenager. He was pale, with a splattering of freckles across his nose. Mussy brown bangs flopped into his face, but the rest of it was just barely long enough to stay in the tiny ponytail Anrew had fashioned at the back of his head.

"The _only_ archer we have, I might add," Anrew laughed.

"Nonetheless!" Fenz argued, then moved on. "Next is Annie, our war cleric."

Annie was a short, plump young woman with a Feroxi complexion. Her short blonde hair clung close to her face, framing it. Her eyes were a deep green, the color of tree leaves in early summer. She raised a hand in greeting. "Yo!" she grinned widely.

"Then we have Enden, our mage."

A tired-looking man smiled a little, his grey eyes scanning Gaius, and running a hand through jet black. "Nice to meet ya, kid," he said in a gruff, sleepy voice. From the looks of it, someone (probably Elis) had drug him out of a deep sleep to come to the impromptu meeting.

"And then," he gestured to the woman who had shut Elis up, "Commander Risslyn."

Commander Risslyn was a tall, muscular woman, with long, curly blue-green hair tied into a single, low ponytail on the left side of her head. She crossed her arms, pursed her lips, and looked at Gaius through wood-brown, scrutinizing eyes.

"So. You're Gaius," she said. "I'm sure you're more than a bit surprised to see a woman in command around here." She stressed the word 'woman.' The company collectively groaned.

"Here we go," Anrew sighed. She went on as if she hadn't heard any of them.

"I worked damn hard to become a leader in a war of primarily men, and I'm still working damn hard to be taken seriously by anyone outside our company. Men expect us all to be gentle little flowers, healing and riding horses with wings through the sky, waiting to be shot full of arrows. No man expects to see a woman on horseback with a sword, and they don't take you as a serious threat. Which does have its tactical advantages, I'll admit, but it's degrading and repulsive. When Annie wanted a weapon, I damned well gave her one. Women are not delicate, we are not fragile, and we're not waiting around for someone stronger to come save us. So I expect, no, I demand no less than absolute respect from everyone in this group because I sure as hell don't get it from outside parties more often than not."

The world seemed to hold its breath for Gaius's answer. The boy responded with the only thing that came to mind.

"Once, a thief broke into our house, and my mom knocked him out cold with a frying pan before he could get away. It was really amazing."

Everyone broke into laughter. She thumped Gaius on the back the way Fenz had earlier. "Welcome aboard, Gaius." Fenz grinned at him.

"Now just to figure out what weapon you'd be best with so you can—"

"Wait," Gaius said, backing away slightly. "What do you mean, weapon?"

"Well, to stay with us, you're going to need to pull your weight…"

"When did I agree to staying with you?" he demanded. He'd expected to be dropped off at an orphanage in the next town they were going to, or something. He wasn't sure that this was a better option. Killing people just because those people killed other people didn't seem to fix much of anything. Then again, these people had already accepted him, and tried to make him feel a part of their group. "Don't I get any say in this?"

"Of course," Risslyn said, cutting off whatever Fenz was about to say. She shot Fenz a scathing look. "I had assumed you'd already been asked." She turned back to Gaius. "We pack up camp tomorrow morning. We'll find a spare bedroll for you to spend the night in, and tomorrow you can give me your decision. If you decide not to, we can see if the next town we go to has any place that can take you."

"Thank you," Gaius said, feeling a lot better now that he knew he actually had control over something going on in his life. It felt like all of his control had been wrenched from him by the Plegians, and then by Elis.

"He can sleep in my tent!" Elis piped up.

"No," Annie said immediately, "he can't. You just moved into my tent, remember?"

"I've got room in mine, then," Anrew commented loftily. "Unless he wants to stay with Fenz some more."

"I'll stay with you," Gaius said quickly. As nice as Fenz had been, he was angry over the fact that he'd just assumed Gaius would go along with whatever was planned for him. He had no real impression of Anrew yet. He figured if he was going to make a decision on whether he stayed with these people or not, he may as well get to know everyone as well as he could first.

"Great. Come on, then, let's find you a bedroll."


	5. Healing

Finding a spare bedroll proved to be more easily said than done. It took a good half hour or so until they located one.

"Not here," Anrew would say loftily. "Somewhere else, though, I'm sure." Gaius tried to think of some way to make conversation; he hadn't decided if he was going to stay with these people or not, but he figured one of the best ways was to get to know the people he might be traveling with. The only problem was, he wasn't entirely sure what to say.

"What made you join the Ylissean army?" he asked finally. Anrew laughed heartily.

"Don't tell me you think this is the army, kid."

"Uh, well…"

"The army's run by the Exalt, and he's just fighting to fight, same as Gangrel. We're fighting to try and save people, to help end the war. We're just a group of people sick of innocent people getting dragged into bloodshed that doesn't concern them." He motioned Gaius to follow him; no bedroll around here. "A lot of us have stories similar to yours, really. I lost my sister, Inda, to Plegia a couple months back." He continued in a carefree manner, as if this was something families talked about over dinner. "They took all the women from the town away. Alive, if they could. Or tried to, at least. We drove a lot of them off before they could do too much damage, but when the dust settled and the surviving brutes had left, Inda was gone. Nope," he shook his head, gesturing to the pile of items in storage that he'd just dug through, "not here. Somewhere else, then."

Gaius kind of stood in shock as Anrew started to leave him to look elsewhere for a bedroll for the boy. The archer didn't notice until he was several paces away.

"Well, come on then!"

"Coming…" Gaius murmured, letting Anrew's story stew in his head. Rather than letting himself stay a victim, he got over his pain and fought. He fought for his sister, not knowing what had become of her anymore. While Gaius still wasn't sure violence was the best answer, it did seem better than sitting around in an orphanage and not doing anything to help anyone.

They did eventually find a bedroll, which they set up in Anrew's tent. Inside the tent, it was fairly barren, save for the two places to sleep and a place to keep his bows and quivers full of arrows.

"It's not much," Anrew shrugged, "but it means less to carry when we move. And that's a plus for everyone, seeing as Risslyn's horse is the only one we have to help us cart stuff around. Anyway, make yourself at home. I'm gonna see if there's anyone who wouldn't mind sparring with me. Catch you later, yeah?" And with that, he was gone. Gaius sat on his bed for the night for a few moments, mulling over the day. Things were happening fast around here, and they seemed to be getting faster. Anrew's story ran through his mind again. He wondered what'd happened to his sister; if she was alive or dead, if she'd escaped, where she might be now if she was still alive. Maybe Anrew thought about it sometimes, too. Maybe he thought about it a lot. Either way, he dealt with it fairly easily, considering the story. He was a fairly aloof person, despite it all.

Of course, it probably took a while for him to get over what happened to him, but he was doing something constructive with his energy, rather than brooding about it. Gaius had to respect that. It seemed better than what he was doing.

_But violence isn't the way to fix this,_ he thought wearily.

He shoved his thoughts aside, tired of thinking about them, and went to go find someone who might need his help elsewhere in the camp.

In the kitchen tent, he found Annie making dinner for everyone.

"Anything I can do?" he asked quietly from the door flap. She whirled around, ladle in hand, her blond hair tucked behind a head kerchief as much as possible.

"Gaius!" she greeted brightly. "Come on in, I'm sure I could find something for you to do."

Gaius crept into the kitchen tent shyly as Annie stirred the stew pot. "How good are you at chopping veggies?" she asked.

"Uh," was Gaius's reply. His mother hadn't let him deal with knives very often; he was in charge of splitting wood after his father had died, stoking the fires, the chores he could do that his dad had done that his mother had decided he was old enough to do. He had very little experience with knives, specifically of the kitchen kind.

"Here, I'll teach you," Annie said. She motioned him over to the cooking table and to the block of wood where several varieties of vegetables waited for him, most of which he didn't recognize.

"We'll start with the leeks, since they're easy to cut. You take the knife, put your hand behind it, but still on the leek, and then carefully but firmly bring the knife down." She cut a row of the green-white plants into little rings, almost like magic. She did it a few more times before handing the knife to Gaius. "Go on, give it a try."

Carefully, he positioned his hand behind the knife, gripped the leeks, and brought the knife down. His cut was a lot less precise than Annie's had been; the leek bits were bigger than hers, and some of them didn't get cut clean through, causing him to need to saw a little bit to get through the extra leeks.

"There you go!" Annie grinned, slapping him on the back. He cringed; why did everyone in this group do that? "When you're done with the leeks, let me know and I'll put them in the stew." _Leeks in stew?_ Gaius thought to himself. They didn't look like they belonged in stew. Then again, he'd never had leeks before, so he really couldn't speak for whether or not they should be in a stew. "It's my week to cook, and I'm not too great at it," Annie admitted, turning back to the pot over the fire, "but I'm better than I was when I joined."

It seemed like the best opener he was going to get. "How'd you get involved with this group?" Gaius asked, continuing to cut leeks. Annie stiffened for a moment, then relaxed.

"It's not something I like to talk about," she said simply, not looking at him.

"Oh," Gaius said, feeling stupid for asking. "Sorry for asking," he offered.

"Nah, don't worry about it. You didn't mean any harm." She spoke as though she was trying to shake it off, like the story was a ghost that stared her in the face before she went to sleep at night. He finished chopping the leeks in silence. _I guess not everyone is able to act like what brought them here never happened to them like Anrew can, _Gaius thought. That made him feel a little better about the ache and emptiness that still sat in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm done," he piped up once the leeks were all in assorted shapes and sizes. Annie looked up from turning some kind of meat on a spit that hung over the stewpot. She grinned and took the cutting board from him, sliding the leeks into the mix.

"I'll tell you a secret," she said, motioning to the meat. "If you cook it over the pot, the fat drips into the pot and gives it more flavor. Otherwise, the meat ends up being kind of tasteless."

"What kind of meat is it?" he asked.

"A wildcat of some kind, or so said Fenz, who killed and cleaned it." She shrugged. "It's meat, that's all that matters to me. You wanna cut the carrots next?"

And so Gaius started cutting the carrots, one at a time. The two of them filled the silence with casual conversation, or as casual as you could get given the circumstances.

"Nah, I like it here," Annie admitted once the conversation got around to it. "It's dysfunctional, and everyone is a pain in the ass at times, but I like it. I'm a part of something, and we're trying to make a difference. Plus," she added in a slightly less wistful tone, "learning how to kick someone's ass is a major upside to having been here."

"Do you think I'd be good here?" Gaius asked up front. Annie was easier to talk to than Anrew; she seemed a lot more real, in a sense. Like she didn't push her emotions aside to seem aloof or super okay with everything. She had feelings about things, feelings Gaius could connect to.

"I think you would," Annie admitted. "I think it would be good for you, too. But ultimately it's your–" she was cut off by a yell.

"Ow! Ow, ow, ow, pox and demon spit!" Gaius yelled, his hand flying to his mouth and tasting blood. Tears welled in his eyes despite trying to bite them back.

"Oh, gods," Annie said, swiftly crossing to Gaius. "Come on, let me see," she demanded. Gaius obliged, the pain greater than any physical pain he'd ever felt before. He looked down at his finger and shrieked. Blood was gushing from his finger, and the sight of it made the pain more intense. "You're okay," Annie said firmly. "Deep breaths, okay?" She pulled something that seemed like gauze out of her pocket and jammed it against where the blood was flowing from. "Keep pressure on that, alright? I'll be right back." And she was out of the kitchen tent in an instant. Gaius tried to take deep breaths, tried to keep pressure on the wound without making it hurt more than it already did, tried to stop crying. He could feel the blood seeping through the gauze and it made it hard to stay calm. That paired with the pain, it was nearly impossible, and with every exhale, he found himself whimpering a little. _You're going to be okay_ he thought to himself shakily. In that moment, Annie burst back into the kitchen with a staff, a deep blue orb mounted on top of it.

"Gauze off. This is going to feel weird," she warned, her voice still firm and commanding. Gaius did as he was told and held his breath, as though that would make the pain go away faster. He closed his eyes, now knowing why the local farmer had swiftly killed any animals that were wounded beyond help. Behind his eyelids, a light filled the room, and his hand got warm and tingly, the pain somehow getting more intense but subsiding at the same time. The light dimmed out, and the pain was gone. Gaius opened his eyes and looked at his finger, which, aside from being a little redder than usual, was completely unharmed. All of the air he'd been holding in suddenly rushed out of him in amazement. Annie let out a sigh of relief.

"Gods, you scared me there, kid. What'd you do, mistake the end of your finger for the carrot?" She asked. Gaius tilted his head at her, not sure what she was getting at. "You managed to take the end of your finger off. Thank the gods you didn't hit a bone, that would have been even worse." She looked him over. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he said slowly, looking at his hand in awe. It was as if nothing had ever happened to it. She shook her head and leaned the staff against the wall.

"Be more careful, yeah? Come turn the spit while I finish the veggies."


End file.
